Hoover police Capt. Gregg Rector said investigators had all but ruled out suicide and other possible scenarios in the shooting, but an autopsy was still being conducted on the 31-year-old victim.

The man, whose name was not released immediately, was found shot once in the head in an apartment on Tuesday afternoon, and no one else was inside other than the toddler.

Investigators found no sign of an intruder or a self-inflicted wound, Rector said, and police know there was a semiautomatic pistol in the apartment, located in suburban Birmingham.

“It wouldn’t be a physical obstacle for a 2½-year-old boy to pull a trigger on a semiautomatic handgun,” said Rector.

The 2-year-old lives with his mother in the apartment and a sibling who was fathered by the same man, Rector said.

While the mother was at work, the man often stayed at the apartment to care for his son.

The woman discovered the man dead in the apartment when she returned home and called authorities, according to the police.

Rector said the man’s death appeared to be a “horrible accident” resulting from a child getting hold of a handgun.

Just yesterday, we reported that a 4-year-old Georgia boy fatally shot his mother in the head after reaching for a loaded gun while they sat in the car then pulling the trigger.

The mother, Dorothy Leighann Reardean, lingered in the hospital in critical care until she died approximately 24 hours later.

Also yesterday, but in Alabama, a 2-year-old boy appears to have fatally shot his father.

This is a banner week for the National Rifle Association.

The NRA has taken the official position to oppose bills that would have required adults with children to lock up their guns, because the gun lobbyist organization claims locking up guns “render(s) homeowners defenseless and given criminals a clear advantage in home invasions,” and that locking up guns “render(s) firearms useless in self-defense situations.”

Little kids see a gun and think, ‘Oooo shiny!’ At least none of the aforementioned children put the gun in their mouths, but they’ll have to live with the knowledge that they unintentionally pulled the trigger that killed their parent. And it’s the gun owner’s fault, not theirs.

Conover was Commander of Jade Helm 15 during the failed takeover of the South. She's also one of the biggest arseholes on Twitter. At night, she can be found drinking Conservative tears while pulling off the wings of flies just because she can. She writes for other sites, too. She's an awful person but she doesn't like to brag about that.